Gen Z, the 68 million-plus Americans born between 1997 and 2012, seem to be the living embodiment of the late Rodney Dangerfield, the self-deprecating comedian who built a career around five famous words, “I don’t get no respect.”

Dangerfield, born Jacob Cohen, got no respect from nobody, not even from his parents. “When I was a kid my parents moved a lot,” he told us, “but I always found them.”

He got no respect from women. “A girl phoned me the other day and said, ‘Come on over. There’s nobody home.’ I went over; nobody was home.” He even got no respect from his shrink: “I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous; everyone hasn’t met me yet.”

While every generation since the beginning of recorded history has been misunderstood to some extent, perhaps no generation has presented more contradictions than Gen Z.

But much of what you’ve heard is simplistic, or even untrue, and most of it won’t help you engage with the Gen Zers in your company or in the recruiting process.